ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), eased 0.02 per cent year-on-year in the week ending June 5 owing to a slight decrease in the retail prices of perishable products.

The SPI-based inflation recorded a partial decline after three weeks of consecutively increases. A decline in perishable vegetables mainly drives the decrease. It, however, increased by 0.02 per cent from the previous week, official data showed on Thursday.

The extraordinary spike in the retail prices of sugar, meat and chicken also contributed to reversing the trend during the past weeks under review. The retail price of sugar in the market reached to Rs190 to Rs200 per kg.

The week-on-week decline was recorded after three consecutive weeks of increase, mainly due to a drop in the price of tomatoes, potatoes and onions.

The overall short-term inflation slowed due to the higher base of last year. Moreover, the prices remained stable for most products, excluding wheat flour and a few perishables.

The weekly inflation hit a record 48.35pc year-on-year in early May 2023, but then decelerated as low as 24.4pc in late August 2023 before surging past 40pc during the week ending Nov 16, 2023.

The items whose prices decreased the most over the previous week included chicken (11.22pc), garlic (3.71pc), LPG (0.76pc), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.24pc), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.10pc) and cooking oil 5-litre (0.02pc).

The items whose prices saw an increase week-on-week included tomatoes (16.94pc), potatoes (11.52pc), onions (5.21pc), bananas (1.57pc), eggs (1.34pc), sugar (1.24pc), rice basmati broken (1.02pc), gur (0.81pc), pulse masoor (0.65pc), milk fresh (0.47pc), pulse mash (0.46pc), pulse gram (0.44pc) and petrol (0.41pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included ladies sandal (55.62pc), eggs (35.36pc), pulse moong (31.74pc), powdered milk (23.82pc), sugar (23.51pc), beef (17.51pc), bananas (17.29pc), pulse gram (15.91pc), chicken (15.88pc), LPG (15.31pc), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (13.56pc) and vegetable ghee 1kg (12.49pc).

In contrast, the prices of onions dropped 64.90pc, followed by electricity charges for Q1 (36.54pc), garlic (27.79pc), potatoes (23.15pc), tomatoes (18.10pc), pulse mash (17.99pc), tea Lipton (17.93pc), wheat flour (14.10pc), chillies powder (5.74pc), diesel (5.68pc), rice Irri (5.56pc), pulse masoor (5.47pc) and petrol (5.41pc).

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2025